THE ANATOMY LESSON

Having won the Queen's Prize for sculpture at the Edinburgh College of Art in 1905 Carrick studied under Professor Edouard Lanteri at the South Kensington College in London. The Belgian sculptor was responsible for the teaching of many notable British sculptors of the early 20th century and seems to have been a great influence on Carrick. Below left is a picture from Lanteri's seminal work 'Modelling and Sculpting the Human Figure' which demonstrates his anatomical approach to sculpture, creating art which is true to nature by basing it on anatomy, building from the foundation of bone and muscle outwards. The book is essentially the text book for Lanteri's classes at the college and this figure is one of several photographs illustrating his advanced class in which his students would have modelled a full scale figure for the first time.
The photograph below right is from Alexander Carrick's collection and has no explanatory note written on it. Judging by the similarity with Lanteri's illustration and its age however, it seems reasonable to assume that this was the figure which Carrick modelled for this specific class at South Kensington (presumably around 1907). If so then this must be Carrick's first ever full scale figurative sculpture.